


i want to fill it with colour and ducks

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: Hurt Jake Peralta [4]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Jake Peralta, Hurt/Comfort, Pain, Paternal Instinct, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 14:16:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19336216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: The family you choose, and the pain that you don't.





	i want to fill it with colour and ducks

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Child by Sylvia Plath

They've been at it for hours. 

Holt doesn't know the exact time that these men had started working on Jake - because that was the only way he could describe the curt professionalism they had about them, work - but if he had been one for metaphor he would have said it felt like years. He does his best to keep his face neutral, to pretend that this is not getting to him, because that's exactly what they want. They want him to crack and reveal the location of a keyy witness in a trial against their crime family - a location that Holt does not have.

There is a sharp crack; Jake lets out a guttural scream. His patella, Holt thinks, trying to keep a clinical mindset so as to best administer first aid when he is able. 

"You really care this little for him?" one of them asks, casually, over the sound of Jake's low whines of pain. "For your little pet project? Seriously?"

Holt purposefully doesn't look at Jake's huddled form on the ground. He flexes against his bindings, but they hold. "I cannot give you the information you require." he replies, wishing they understood, why don't they understand? "I have no idea of the whereabouts of the man you are asking about. He has been placed in witness protection and I have not been informed -"

Jake vomits then, interrupting him, and it's spotted with blood. It could be from his concussion, or from internal bleeding, or a punctured lung, or any of his other numerous injuries. Holt is surprised he is still conscious, and almost wishes he wasn't.

"My detective needs medical attention." He is not one to beg, but if there was ever a time for it - "Murdering a police officer of the NYPD is an offence that is far more trouble than it's worth."

"Is that why we shouldn't kill him?" One of the men kneels and grabs a handful of Jake's hair, jerking his face up, and Holt feels bile rise unbidden in his throat when he sees the mess they've made of it - Peralta is barely recognisable. "For the hassle? Not cause you care about him?"

Holt shifts, uncomfortable more than physically. "It would not be in your best interests to -"

"Beg," one of the others says suddenly. He crosses the room, wiping the sweat off his face from the extertion of beating Jake, and hauls Jake to his feet. "Beg us not to kill this little fucking doll, Raymond."

Jake is barely standing; he sags and groans, gibbering feverishly, but he catches Holt's eye and Holt notes in the young detective's face a flash of desperation. He isn't supposed to give it, won't give them what they want, but when he sees that, Holt realizes he never really had a choice.

"Please let me help him," he says, all in a rush, "I am begging you. Please let me keep him alive."

One of them clicks their tongue. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" he coos. "But see, Raymond, before we do that we're going to need to know what you know!"

To Holt's horror, his eyes are starting to prickle with tell-tale tears. "I don't know," he says for the hundreth time, "I was not informed of -"

There is another crack, and a scream, but Holt looks away a second before the blow hits. He can't watch anymore. He won't. There is a clatter as a weapon is dropped carelessly - metallic, possibly a crowbar, his mind fills in unhelpfully - and then a scraping, dragging noise. 

Suddenly, as one of the man sneers, "You really going to ignore him?", Holt feels them haul Jake directly onto him. His arms are tied behind the back of the chair, ankles lashed to the legs, so he can't move to even try and catch the younger man, and his weight knocks the breath out of him painfully.

Infinitely more painful is the agony of having Jake so close and not being able to heal or even comfort him at all. Jake barely struggles; he's wheezing, stinks of vomit and blood, and his fingers catch and pull weakly at Holt's shirt.

He's trying to say something, maybe whisper into Holt's ear, and Holt strains to hear him. "M'phone," he's rasping, "s'got GPS...'sa can..."

Then it's gone as he is yanked back to the ground, and Holt shivers uncontrollably at the loss. Jake finally goes mercifully quiet, but Holt knows that it is mostly likely because of the way his head has smacked against the ground with a sound like a gun going off, and he is most likely unconscious.

"Please!" Holt begs freely now, unprompted. "Please stop this, I don't know, I told you -"

One of the men winks at him, and empties a water bottle over Jake's face, shocking him into spluttering consciousness. He is smiling broadly and Holt decides that none of them will survive to make it to prison if he gets his way.

"No rest for the wicked!"

It could be another hour or another ten minutes before finally, finally, the 99 arrives. By that point, Jake is delirious, screaming for Amy and his mother and Holt - Holt, as if he has forgotten that he is there too - and looking like a golem of blood and bruises. Holt knows his right kneecap, right radius and left collarbone have surely been broken, shattered, along with several ribs. The internal injuries he cannot attest to, but he is sure they are numerous. He relays this to the paramedics when Sargent Jeffords frees him, hovering over Jake's prone, twitching body. 

"He is most likely in shock," he informs them, "he may not respond positively to strangers touching him as he appears to be in a state of panic -"

Rosa appears at his elbow suddenly, and her face is surprisingly gentle. "Captain, you're in shock as well." she tells him.

Holt frowns. Then he takes stock of his emotions, how his heart is racing, and realise she is right. He lets her wrap a ridiculous foil blanket around him while the EMTs load Jake onto a stretcher, and he is just about to go ahead to the ambulance when suddenly Jake's hand latches weakly onto the closest section of his arm.

"Nuh," the younger man wheezes, the whites of his eyes bloodshot grotesquely, "dad, stay with me."

A peculiar warmth spreads through Holt's chest, but he does not feel it is due to his state of shock. He thinks this may be of a more innocent and paternal nature, and he does not fight it - simply pushes Jake's hair back from his stained forehead and slows his pace to walk beside the stretcher. Beside his child.

"Of course, Jacob."


End file.
